


how i imagined us

by Eliane



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:38:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliane/pseuds/Eliane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I think about how lucky I am. The whole time, I just keep thinking about how incredibly lucky I am. “</em>
</p><p>  <em>“Because you’re kissing me?” </em></p><p>  <em>“Because I’m kissing you and you’re…” Louis stops. Then continues, quietly, “Because you’re the love of my life, Haz.” </em></p><p>  <em>New York is one of Harry’s favourites.</em></p><p>[Sometimes reality is shitty and Louis plays Scheherazade.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	how i imagined us

**Author's Note:**

> So thanks to the "usual" crew (I just wantd to write this), [Marianna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshiner/pseuds/sunshiner) for making this readable, as usual, and like listening to me complain a lot and helping me with a whole bunch of things basically; [Clara](http://barefootau.tumblr.com/) for proofreading it and being accepting of my angsty self. Thanks to [Jen](http://yslhoe.tumblr.com/), as always, for having faith in me & supporting me!!

It always starts like this.

Harry will pick a city (he usually goes for the one they’re in at the moment, because he’s predictable like this) and Louis will choose how old they’re supposed to be. A place and an age and, from those two things only, Louis will create the story.

Sometimes Harry doesn’t say a word. He just listens to Louis talk and talk, his voice loud and clear in the beginning, becoming raspier and quieter as the story unfolds until there’s nothing left of it but a whisper, something that’s only meant to be heard by Harry. It’s a melody Harry knows well, has learned to follow seamlessly. Those nights – the nights where Harry doesn’t utter a word and just listens to Louis – are the bad nights.

Most of the times, though, Harry doesn’t leave Louis alone with the story and goes along with it. He’ll ask questions and will play the score Louis is writing for him like a virtuoso, infusing the story with his own thoughts and fantasies.

They’re good at this. They’re fucking great at this. Bouncing off each other. To be fair, they’re good at everything together. The dream team, people call them. And sometimes, the little two-player team that they form will feel the need to build its own dreams, far away from the harsh reality of the closet and everything that threatens to tear them apart.

There’s no real pattern to it. Sometimes it happens every night in a week, sometimes they don’t feel the need to play the game for months. Sometimes, the story happens when they’re about to make love and intertwines itself between ragged breaths and soft moans. Sometimes it’s in the middle of the night - Harry will carefully squeeze Louis’ shoulder to wake him up, a bit ashamed but too needy to really care. Louis never complains about it. Not when it’s for the stories, at least.

Sometimes it will be dawn and the first lights of the day will be coming through the closed curtains of the nondescript hotel room they’re currently staying in, and it will be a way to keep reality at bay, to stop time for a short moment and believe that nothing exists outside the four walls of their room, nothing but the two of them, creating stories upon stories, living lives that aren’t theirs and never will be, but where they are always, always so in love.

\---

  
_Manchester, 2011._

The first time it happens it’s an accident. The hotel room they’re staying in is a bit cramped, but everything is new and so so exciting. The most exciting thing though, in Harry’s opinion, is Louis. Harry’s never known someone quite like him, which doesn’t say much considering how young he is, but he also likes to think it’s one of those things that will stay true no matter how old he gets. They’ve met countless of people during the past months, some who were really fucking famous, and none of them have quite managed to capture his attention like Louis does.

Harry may be obsessed with Louis.

And, yeah, maybe he’s currently a bit drunk. The other boys have just left their room and everything is spinning and god, Harry loves hotel rooms. Loves the feeling of making a new home wherever he is. (The novelty will pass soon enough and they’ll all become a blur in his mind, but right now it’s still something to be excited about and Harry is nothing if not excited about new things.)

Harry’s lounging on the bed, listening to Louis go through his nightly routine, when he asks – and that’s how it begins:

“Do you ever think about how we could have met? If things were different?”

“What do you mean?” Louis answers, glancing at him from the bathroom.

“I don’t know, we’re in Manchester, aren’t we? I was just thinking that if we hadn’t auditioned we would probably both have gone to uni here. And like, maybe we would have met, but as students. At a party or in one of our lectures. It’s kind of funny to imagine.”

Louis stays silent for the longest time and Harry's a bit afraid he’s said something wrong, which is stupid because there’s nothing wrong about thinking that they could have met under different circumstances, but maybe it’s too much? Maybe he’s coming on too strong. Louis comes out of the bathroom, ready for the night, and must immediately sense Harry’s distress, because he says:

“Hey, it’s fine. Of course we could have met as uni students. That’s actually kind of romantic, innit? The idea that we would still have met, no matter what.”

It is. It’s also strangely comforting and reassuring, even though Harry doesn’t really know how to verbalize it. “Yeah,” he says. “I think I would like that.”

Everything has happened so quickly since Harry auditioned for the X Factor. Everything has gone so fucking fast and then there was Louis, and it seems like Harry’s whole world has been reordered around him. It’s not even been a year since they’ve met, but they’re already searching for flats to move in together and maybe Harry needs to know that this isn’t just due to their circumstances, but that there’s something more to it. That whatever they are would still work if they had met as ordinary students.

“I mean, we could still be the same age, yeah?” Louis continues. “You’d be, like, seventeen and I'd be nineteen, and you would be new here, and we'd meet and I would make it my duty for you to have the best year of your life.”

“That sounds like you, Lou.”

“It'd be so great, Haz!” Louis says, and he seems really taken with the idea now. “Imagine, we could just go to parties and I’d have a flat, yeah? I’d definitely have a flat, and you would like, not live with me but spend most of your time there and we would do everything uni students do. Drink too much and go to lectures still half drunk, and stress for our exams. Spend countless of hours in the library. The boys could all be there and it'd be the most fun we’ve ever had!”

“Would we stay together, though?” Harry frowns. “Like, after uni has ended? I wouldn’t want for us to just be a uni fling.”

He’s not sure he should be thinking about that. He knows exactly what he wants with Louis and what he wants from Louis, but he has never really dared to speak of it out loud, because he also knows how fragile this all is and how uncertain their future is. And Louis… Well, Louis is kind of all over the place. Not when it comes to Harry, but when it comes to everything else. So, even though one year ago Harry saw Louis and thought “oh”, he’s tried really hard not to rush things. It didn’t work, exactly, but at least he tried.

“We wouldn’t,” Louis answers. Then: “Is that what you think? That we’re just a fling?” and god, fuck, he sounds hurt.

“No, no” Harry says, and maybe it comes out as a little desperate. “I don’t think that at all,” he adds more quietly.

“Good,” Louis says. “Because this isn’t a game for me. I’m… Harry?”

“Yeah?” Harry breathes and it’s kind of hard and it feels like he’s barely able to utter the word, like something really important is about to happen.

“I’m in love with you. I’ve been for the longest time.”

Later, Harry will read – and he’ll get mad, so mad – about how Louis isn’t brave enough. He’ll read so many things about their relationship, and so many of them will be blatantly untrue and will make him laugh in disbelief, but this one will sting, the one about Louis not being brave enough. Or good enough. Because he’ll remember a hotel room in Manchester, and how young they were and, especially, how young he was, and how Louis still gave him his heart and had enough faith in him to believe that a seventeen year old boy wouldn’t break it, and he’ll think, _you don’t know him at all, do you?_

He answers: “I’m in love with you too.”

And Louis’ smile is incredibly blinding and raw and something Harry wishes he could capture and keep with him forever, but he’ll just have this memory. It’s good enough.

The first time it happens is an accident. It’s also the first time they say I love you and the beginning of something new.

\---

_New York, March 2012._

New York is one of Harry’s favourites. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why because there’s nothing incredible about it, nothing really epic. Yet, it’s often those he cherishes the most. The ones where Louis doesn’t make their lives extraordinary. The ones where they meet, fall in love, and it’s a bit dull, maybe, and nothing people would write songs about, but he relishes the utter normalcy of it.

He says “New York” and Louis answers, “I’m twenty-seven and you’re twenty-five.” They’ve just had sex and they’re still a bit sweaty and gross, but Harry doesn’t feel tired, not in the least, and he wants a story. During the year they’ve been doing this, they’ve had time to build a routine, and Louis’s had time to come up with a great range of different scenarios, yet there’s still a feeling of excitement and apprehension before it begins. It’s something new, always something new, and Harry can’t help but wonder where it will lead them.

“’I’ve been living here for a few years now and you’ve just moved away from England. We meet on a Sunday evening, through a mutual friend I play football with. Maybe Liam. You know him from home and we’re both… We’re both working in music, so he thinks it’s a good idea to introduce us. Maybe he’s also trying his hand at matchmaking.”

“Well, good work hypothetical Liam,” Harry praises.

“Hey, who says it’s gonna work?” Louis asks.

“Is it not?”

“No spoilers. Let me tell the story.”

“Sure, babe,” Harry laughs, and this is good. He feels good, with his beautiful boy lying next to him, telling him a story. They’re in New York and he’s kind of in love with the city too, with the red buildings and the smell of food everywhere, and how messy and busy everything is. Harry’s sort of messy and all over the place too, and he feels strangely in sync with the city.

(And maybe things are going to shit, a bit, maybe it will later feel like the last good night in a while and that’s why Harry will cling to the memory so desperately. He’ll draw an invisible line in time and think, this is when things were still good, when we didn’t have to act like we barely know each other. This memory will become a landmark in Harry’s mind and he’ll go back to it again and again.)

“So, I guess we’re older than usual and a little more jaded. Not bitter, but more cautious, because we’ve already had our share of heartbreaks and that’s just how things go. You become harsher and surer of what you want and don’t want, and sometimes a stranger coming into your life without any warning isn’t what you were prepared for.”

“So do we, like, hate each other?”

“No,” Louis answers. “No, of course we don’t. We just take things slowly. Because we really really don’t want to fuck it up this time. Because we know that this, us, is something special. So we have a lot of brunch dates, except we don’t really count them as dates. And we go for evening strolls in Central Park. And for morning runs together. I mean, I guess that’s what people in their mid-twenties do. I wouldn’t know, would I?”

“Seems plausible enough,” Harry says. “Wouldn’t it be sad though? That we only meet when we’re older? Like, what about all that time we didn’t know each other?”

“I’m not sure sad is the right word, Haz. It’s like, stuff happens for a reason, yeah? And maybe, in this world where we meet when we are older, we do because that’s when it’s the right time for us to meet. Or maybe there’s no right time. Maybe it’s just like moments where we could have met and didn’t, and when we finally do we still work, because we’re still Harry and Louis.”

“Right. So, how does it go this time?”

“Well, it’s New York, and it’s spring, and one day, one day after many many dates that we don’t count as dates we go back to my flat. Everything is really delicate and fragile, like it feels in April, like one wrong word and it could all disappear. Everything is also so hopeful. We’re in my flat, which has, like, a great view, and we’re maybe slouching on the sofa or standing next to each other in the kitchen, or smoking a cigarette near the opened window, and I’m thinking about kissing you but I’m still not sure that it’s the right thing to do.”

“How could it be wrong?”

“It couldn’t. Which is why, in the end, I do it.”

“How do you kiss me?”

“I kiss you like I’ve been wanting this for the entire time. Like I’ve never wanted anything else. It’s a bit hesitant, I guess, and a bit dizzying because it’s you. I feel like I might faint. So I kiss you harder, rougher, with more intent, because I know I won’t be rejected and I know I’m welcomed. And it shouldn’t feel like anything else but a first kiss, and it should be shy and awkward, but it’s also so much more. And I think…”

“Yeah?”

“I think about how lucky I am. The whole time, I just keep thinking about how incredibly lucky I am. “

“Because you’re kissing me?”

“Because I’m kissing you and you’re…” Louis stops. Then continues, quietly, “Because you’re the love of my life, Haz.”

New York is one of Harry’s favourites.

\---

_London, 2013._

It happens outside a hotel room once and only once.

Harry is in bed, sick, but then it feels like he has been sick for months. There’s never enough time to properly rest and recover, always a party to go to, willingly or unwillingly, always a plane to catch, always a show they have to perform. He’s too sick and feverish to properly fall asleep and too tired to do anything other than lying in bed, wishing it would all stop, just for a minute.

At some point, he hears Louis enter the room and he gathers enough strength to say: “London.”

Louis’ steps falter and stop. “Haz, are you sure?” he asks. If Harry was a bit more awake or a little less ill, he would get angry because yes, of course he’s sure and would Louis get on with it, please? Instead, he repeats “London” and hopes his tone is firm enough that Louis won’t argue further. He doesn’t.

He says “okay then” and sits on the bed, next to Harry. He doesn’t touch him, seems to feel that Harry wouldn’t allow it, that the only thing Harry wants from him, right now, is his voice and a story.

“I’m twenty-five and you’re twenty-three,” Louis begins. He waits a moment to see if Harry’s going to pick up on the story, but Harry doesn’t say anything. “We’re just out of university and we got a flat together. It’s quite small, there’s only one bedroom and a living room, but it’s ours and we’re proud of it. You spent countless hours browsing through interior design magazines and dragging me into furniture shops and it’s like, not perfect or anything, but it’s kind of great.”

Harry shuts his eyes tighter, trying to stop himself from tearing up.

“We’re this couple who made it out of uni unscathed,” Louis continues, voice shaking a little. “It’s like, the beginning of everything for us, the beginning of a life together. We both work a lot. You have an internship and I have a job, my first real long term paid job. We’re trying not to be that couple that’s so into each other that they forget all about their friends, probably because we know that if we didn’t try we would absolutely become that couple.”

Harry smiles a bit at this.

“So like, once a month you decide to throw a party and we invite all of our friends, those who are in London anyway. You tell me what I should go buy and I always end up forgetting a key ingredient and have to rush to the shops to get it in time. You cook and it’s all very proper, and makes us feel older and more adult than we actually are. Our group of friends is a strange mix between our childhood friends and our uni friends, but somehow it works. We have,“ and Louis’ voice breaks, “we have so much fun. Sometimes, we’re so tired and there’s so much going on that we don’t make love for days on end. But when we do it’s as good as ever, and it feels so fucking right, Harry. It, like. Makes us remember why we’re all doing this for.”

“Is it… Is it easy?” Harry asks. He doesn’t want to speak, not really, and his voice is raw and it hurts, but he has to know. If there’s a universe, or a place, where it would be easier.

“No,” Louis says after a short silence. “It’s not. We have bills to pay and more often than not we wonder how we’re gonna make ends meet. I always spend too much on stupid things we don’t really need and you yell at me and we fight about it.”

“Tell me how we fight.”

“Harry…”

“Louis, please. Just tell me how we fight.”

“We fight like two people who know each other too well. Who know exactly what to say to make it hurt. We fight like two people who love each other so much sometimes it’s suffocating.” It is. “Like two young adults who met when they were still children and grew up together and don’t know exactly how to define themselves without the other. Where they end and the other begins. We fight,” Louis exhales shakily and Harry knows this is hurting him, hurting both of them, but he needs to see it to its end. “We fight like we’re trying to find ourselves, to see if we could bear having this part of ourselves we gave the other be taken away from us. “

“Could we? Bear it?”

“Not without it hurting horribly. And maybe that’s why we fight. Because every time we do, we also remember that we are choosing this, that this is what we want, more than anything else. But yeah. Of course we could.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers and he is. Not only for making Louis say this, but for the endless parade of girls he’s supposedly dating – or fucking – Louis has to read about in the papers the morning after, sorry for how they let everything go so wrong and how quickly it happened, how everything slipped away from them without giving them a chance to really fight back. He’s sorry because now their bedroom will always be the place where Harry asked Louis to tell him how they fight.

They’re both quiet for the longest time. Then, Harry asks his last question:

“And how in love are we?”

“I don’t think,” Louis says slowly, “that two people could ever be more in love than we are.”

Then, without a word, Louis gets up and leaves the room, shutting the door carefully behind him.

It happens outside of a hotel room once and only once. It’s also the worst one.

\---

_Paris, June 20th 2014._

Retrospectively, it might not have been the best of times to initiate their game, considering that Harry is currently sprawled naked on the bed in their hotel room, Louis sucking what will likely become a bruise on his hipbone, one hand slowly caressing his thigh. And it’s not like Harry isn’t interested, because he is, very much, and so is his cock to be quite honest, yet he still finds himself blurting out “Paris”.

Louis stops and raises his head slightly to look at him beneath his eyelashes and god, they are so long, and maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe Harry should forget about it and let Louis resume what he was doing. It was, after all, quite nice. But then Louis does – without any prompting from Harry’s part – and starts placing tiny kisses on Harry’s inner thigh.

“You’re nineteen and I’m twenty-one,” he says. And, okay, apparently they can do both. Have sex and play their game. Or, at least, that’s what Louis seems intent on doing. His voice is a bit raspy, a bit lower than it usually is when they begin, but then, he was a few seconds away from blowing Harry.

Harry closes his eyes and concentrates on the sound of Louis’ voice and the feeling of Louis’ mouth and hands on him. “What are we?” he asks. It’s a good night and he feels like playing along, like pushing Louis further and further to see where this will take them.

“Hmm,” Louis murmurs. “We’re exchange students. And we meet… We meet at a party.”

“What kind of party?”

“The “we’re broke students but still want to have fun” kind of party. We’ve both been invited by a common friend or, like, a friend of a friend, and we don’t know a lot of people because it’s still the beginning of the year and we’re in a foreign city, yeah? So we’re at this party, in a small packed flat, both drinking really cheap alcohol from tiny plastic cups, trying to look more self assured than we really are.”

Louis is now caressing both of his thighs, chin resting on his hip, and Harry opens his legs a little further to let him settle more comfortably. It’s a bit awkward and a bit arousing at the same time. It’s incredibly intimate, Louis’ voice reverberating against his skin, and Harry likes to think that, in some way, it can penetrate his skin, get under it and find its way in his veins where it will stay forever, echoes of Louis’ words running through his body, always. It wouldn’t be the first piece of Louis he gets under his skin permanently.

“I talk to you first. Like, maybe I try to speak to you in French? And then we realize we’re both British, and we laugh. And we just kinda hit it off, you know? So we spend the entire party talking and laughing and, when people start leaving, you tell me you’re not really tired, and I’m not either, so we end up going back to your flat. It’s more of a studio than a real flat, and it’s on the seventh floor of a building. There’s no fucking lift and, when we finally arrive up there, I’m out of breath and you make fun of me, saying that I should exercise more. Which, not nice, Harold,” he says, poking one finger into Harry’s chest. Harry laughs, a bit breathlessly.

“Your flat is small but quite nice and it looks lived-in, and there are books everywhere, which is honestly a bit cliché of you, but I don’t mind. You have beer in your fridge, so we decide to drink that, and you make us listen to some hipster French music you’ve somehow managed to discover in the short time you’ve been there. We end up speaking about our studies, and what we want to do later, and what we imagine our lives will be like. We’re still young and we’re in Paris for a whole year and we’re not afraid of anything. The world is ours.”

“And then?”

“Then,” Louis says, “we kiss. We kiss on your sofa, in your small flat in Paris, and we both taste of alcohol and it’s a bit sloppy and clumsy since it’s a first kiss and we’re definitely drunk, but it’s also really really wonderful.”

“Lou?” Harry interrupts.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Can you kiss me now?”

“Sure,” Louis answers. And it’s neither sloppy nor clumsy; they’re not drunk and it’s definitely not their first kiss. Louis kisses him like he knows how Harry wants to be kissed at this exact moment, firm and slow and reassuring, anchoring him in their own reality, so different from a hypothetical student bedroom. Harry sighs into the kiss, wanting Louis to come closer, wanting his skin on his, the weight of his body grounding him. Louis seems to feel Harry’s change of mood, because he whispers in his ear: “Do you want to stop?” and Harry knows he’s not talking about the kiss but about the story. Harry hesitates for a moment, but, in the end, there’s only one possible answer:

“No, I want you to finish. Just, please stay like this?”

“Okay,” Louis breathes quietly. Everything is very still and Harry can hear the low beat of their hearts. “Okay,” Louis repeats, bringing their foreheads together. “So we kiss for a long time and I sort of want to have sex with you…”

“Sort of?”

“I definitely want to have sex with you. But it also feels like this could be something more? Like we could be something more. So, when things start to get a little heated, I suggest that it may be more reasonable for me to go back to mine for the night.”

“I don’t let you get away with that, do I?” Harry frowns.

“No, you don’t,” Louis chuckles. “You convince me to stay for the night. We still don’t have sex though,” he says in a mock stern voice. “We sleep and the next morning we decide to have breakfast outside. You claim to know a great bakery near the _place de la Contrescarpe_ , and it’s not that far from your flat, so we go there. It’s a Sunday and all the streets are empty, and it feels like we’re the only people in the world. We end up eating our pastries on the steps of the _Panthéon_ , hot coffee in hand, and it’s a great morning.”

“Because we’re together?”

“Because there are some mornings where everything is just really bright and luminous. Where it seems like you have been half blind all your life and a veil has suddenly been lifted, and you can see everything clearly for the first time. That’s what this morning feels like.”

There have been mornings like this, it’s true. They have been few and far in between, but Harry has felt this sensation of finally being able to see clearly for the first time in ages and, for a few moments, basking in the absolute certainty that everything would be alright. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really, that Louis is able to put into words something Harry’s felt but never took the time to analyze – out of the two of them, Louis is the songwriter, the one who needs to verbalize things and make them into a story – yet Harry's still taken aback and falls a little more in love.

“Yeah, I think I know the feeling,” he only says.

They stay silent for a while, both far away, thinking about an imaginary morning, the taste of hot pastries against the other’s lips, the smell of coffee sharp in the air, the sound of laughter in empty streets.

“How does it end?” Harry finally asks, and maybe he’s choking a bit, maybe his voice is a bit too low. It shouldn’t be sad, not really, but it kind of is. The thing, with the stories, is that sometimes they’re an escape; a way to forget how shitty everything around them is and has been for so long. But sometimes, like now, they’re just a painful reminder of everything they can’t have, and Harry wants to scream.

“It doesn’t,” Louis says in a careful voice, sensing that Harry is on the verge of something. “We have the best of years and, when we go back to England, we stay together and it never ever ends, because it’s about us and we don’t end, yeah?”

“Okay, yeah,” Harry exhales softly.

And it’s not like the idea of forever is a completely foreign concept to them, their tattoos are proof enough of that. But the tattoos and the stories don’t work in the exact same way. The tattoos don’t belong to them only, they belong to anyone who sees them and is able to recognize them for what they are. Something between an act of defiance and a statement for the whole world to see. They’re reassurance as much as they are a way to tell what they’re not allowed to say with words.

The stories, though, only belong to them. Harry has never spoken about them to anyone else and, as far as he knows, neither has Louis. Harry isn’t even sure he would know how to explain the stories, what they do for them. He could try, of course, but he has the feeling that it would be like trying to explain a dream, the meaning of it disappearing as soon as you start putting it into words. The stories are more than simple reassurance, they’re a promise, repeated again and again, that they would find each other in another life and would fall in love and be happy.

Sometimes, it feels like the stories are the only thing that keeps them from going mad. Together, the stories forming an invisible yet solid link between them, Harry and Louis create their own legend, with its beginning, its middle and end.

(Except it never ends.)

“Hey,” Louis whispers against his skin, “are you alright?”

Harry nods, because he doesn’t know how to articulate what he’s feeling right now. He’s not _not fine_. He just isn’t sure he’s fine either.

“Want me to go back to blowing you?” Louis asks and Harry laughs, startled. He opens his eyes to find Louis looking at him, eyes glinting, a satisfied expression on the face Harry knows better than his own and loves so so much. In that moment, Harry is grateful that Louis understands him so well and knows how to play his moods; when Harry needs to be left alone and when Harry needs to be brought back from whatever dark corner his thoughts have drifted to. Harry smiles back at him, cupping his jaw between his hands and bringing their mouths together. “Yeah,” he says. “That would definitely be nice.”

“Nice?” Louis repeats, his eyebrows rising the way they do when he tries to appear indignant. It’s more endearing than anything else.

“Well, it’s up to you to make it the best blowjob ever, I guess.”

“Right,” Louis says, because he’s nothing if not competitive and it’s just enough to lift the heavy mood. Harry doesn’t think about the show tomorrow, he doesn’t think that Louis has to stay a few more days and get papped with Eleanor. He forgets all thoughts of another life, not better but different enough from this one that it seems more enviable at the moment. He concentrates on the feeling of Louis’ mouth around his cock, the wet and a bit obscene sounds of suction, his body relaxing and giving itself completely to Louis.

It’s not the best blowjob ever, not really, but close enough.

\---

_Dubai, April 4th 2015_

It’s almost dawn when Harry says “Dubai.” Louis doesn’t hesitate and answers immediately “I’m thirty-one and you’re twenty-nine,” like he has been waiting for this, and maybe he has. It’s been a while since they’ve done it, the last time was probably Rome in December, and they know each other well enough to feel when the itch needs to be scratched. Harry has never actually asked Louis directly what he gains from the stories, but it’s not hard to guess that it’s the same thing Harry gets from them. Or not the same thing, exactly, but close enough. Harry needs to be reassured and Louis is good at reassuring people. It’s not that surprising, really. People who lack self-esteem are often the ones who are the best at making others believe in themselves. As if they somehow put all their energy into making sure that no one ends up like them.

The thing is, it’s not a bad deal. By reassuring Harry, Louis reassures himself, too. By keeping Harry grounded, he grounds and anchors himself. So they’re in Dubai, in one of the most expensive hotel rooms they’ve ever been in, which is saying something, and the night is hot and quiet around them, the heat stilling everything, and Harry wants a story, a story Louis is more than willing to give him.

“We meet at a conference about, hmm, climate change. You’re working for an NGO and I’m working for a big corporation. But, like, a nice one.”

“A nice one?”

“This isn’t an enemies to lovers kind of story, Haz. I’m definitely one of the good guys.”

“Right,” Harry laughs. “Please continue.”

“We don’t actually meet at the conference. We meet at the after party, in a very posh hotel.”

“We do have a tendency to meet at parties, don’t we?”

“Well, I’m gonna be a party boy soon. Please keep up with the narrative.” And it shouldn’t make Harry laugh, but it does.

“I’ve seen your dance moves more times than I can count Lou, I know what you’re about.”

“Hush. Anyway, it’s not that kind of party. It’s a posh party. There’s, like, a lot of champagne and appetizers. So we’re at this party, and we haven’t met yet and I’m bored. The champagne is helping, though.”

“Of course it is,” Harry snorts.

“I’m kinda just standing there, sipping my champagne – gracefully, mind you – and I see you.”

“Is it love at first sight?” Harry asks, because he’s curious and, well, it’s only a story and anything can happen in stories.

“No, not really. It’s more like surprise.”

“Surprise?”

“Yeah. I see you and look at you and I’m surprised we’ve never met before.”

“So it’s surprise and, like, recognition.”

“Yeah,” Louis says softly. “Yeah, it is. I see you and it’s like finding something I didn’t know I was searching for.”

“Seems about right,” Harry mutters.

“So I’m standing there, and I’m thinking about how I should find something to say to you, but not a pick up line because we’re in Dubai, and I’m, like, so busy thinking about all this that I don’t realize you’re now standing in front of me.”

“Am I?”

“You sure are. You make a horrible pun.”

“Hmm and what would that be?”

“Well, unfortunately I can’t come up with something that would be worthy of you so we’ll just have to skip this part, yeah? You make a horrible pun and I laugh.”

“You always laugh,” Harry says, feeling incredibly satisfied with himself.

“Someone has to,” Louis quips. “I laugh and we start talking and it’s just really easy, you know?”

“Yeah,” Harry answers. “I do.”

“There’s a balcony, so we move there and we just keep talking.”

“The whole night?”

“Yeah, the whole night.”

“What do we talk about?”

“Anything. Everything. We talk about how you love dolphins and hate Sea World. We talk about our lives in London and our friends and how everybody seems to have settled down except us. We talk about queer poetry and you quote Hardy to me, or maybe Auden? You talk about your sister and your mother and I talk about mine, and we talk about what we want our future to be like. It’s surprisingly similar. We talk about bad relationships we’re glad we left behind us and about how, sometimes, we feel a bit lost because fuck, I’m over 30 and you’re almost there, and this is not exactly the life we imagined yet it’s the one we’re living. We just, like. Talk about a lot of things.”

“And what happens next?”

“Nothing. Nothing happens. We talk all night and, when we realize it’s dawn and we actually have things to do the next morning, we exchange numbers and promise to see each other again in London. We both think the other won’t hold his part of the bargain because, really, it was just one night in a completely foreign country, and maybe it’s better like this? Maybe it’s better to keep it a memory, to not take the risk of tarnishing it with reality.”

“I’m pretty sure I send you a text, though.”

Louis laughs. “Okay, yeah. You do. You send me a text and we meet up again in London.”

“Do I live up to your expectations?” Harry asks. And he knows it’s kind of stupid, because they’ve been together for almost five years and have more matching tattoos than probably anyone else on this planet, and have written songs about each other, and are, like, actually naked in bed while this story is unfolding. Yet, there’s a tad of insecurity in him that makes him think that maybe Louis, this other Louis, wouldn’t like Harry as much as his does. Maybe Harry is a bit fucked up.

“You exceed them,” Louis says and, god, Harry loves him so much. It’s a bit disgusting, to be honest.

“So, we just meet up and live happily ever after?” Harry asks, and he may be thinking about all the matching tattoos they haven’t got yet.

“Is that what you want to hear?” Louis answers.

“I want to hear what you think,” and suddenly they’re not talking about the story anymore. But then, they never really do.

“I think,” Louis starts in a careful voice, “that sometimes beginnings are easy, and then it gets rough. I think it’s the rough parts that are important. Like, the ugly parts. It’s not the ones you want to talk about, but it’s the ones that actually make you.”

(Harry thinks about having to kiss Taylor when he should be in England with Louis, he thinks about a tweet and a second tweet. He thinks about Zayn saying _I can’t do this anymore_ , about Louis clinging to him and begging _please please make me forget_. He thinks about all the things that should have broken them and yet, here they are.)

“What happens when it stops getting rough?” Harry asks. What he means is, what happens when we don’t have to fight anymore. What do we hold on to? Are we enough or was the fighting the most important part of our relationship?

What he means is, how do we love each other freely? How can we be sure that we won’t just fall apart once there’s no common enemy to unite us?

“It’s always rough. The hard parts… They’re not just here because our situation is extraordinary. It is, but it also isn’t. And, Harry, if I thought that we would break up as soon as we got out of the closet, I certainly wouldn’t have bothered with all the tattoos.”

Which helps Harry breathe a little easier. “Do you ever think that it’s fucked up? What we’re doing with the stories? Do you ever think that it’s a bit crazy that we need to reassure ourselves like this?”

And it’s the first time Harry has addressed the topic directly and god, god, he hopes Louis isn’t going to ignore him, because he’s not sure he could take it. He needs more than reassurance right now, he needs something that will keep him from breaking, and he feels like he’s on the verge of it. Like all those stories about them meeting, again and again, and falling in love and living happily ever after are a lie they’ve told themselves. A feeble attempt at turning this nightmare into a fairy tale.

“How many sisters do I have?” is what Louis answers.

“Five?” Harry says and, like, is this a trick question?

“Right. And when you have sisters, especially little sisters, you really really don’t want them to get their hearts broken, you know?”

“Well, yes. Louis?”

“Hush. Let me finish. So, if I applied your logic to this situation, I would never read any fairy tales to my sisters because fairy tales are a lie and not what life is actually like, right?”

“I mean, there’s clearly a difference between what we’re doing and you reading to your sisters…”

“Ah, but there isn’t really,” Louis says. “So we make up stories for ourselves, because sometimes things are really fucking awful and shitty. What’s the harm in that? It doesn’t make us any less real. People have been doing this since forever. I read fairy tales to my sisters. I invent stories for us. Or, like, we make them up together. It’s just what it is, Harry. Stories. Nothing more, but also nothing less than that.”

“Louis,” Harry asks.

“Yes, love?”

“I’m, like, very much in love with you.”

Louis laughs, and it’s a bit breathless and a bit heartbreaking. “I’m very much in love with you too.”

“Right. Well, I’m glad we’ve settled this.”

Sometimes it feels like everything is collapsing around them, and it’s not a sensation Harry particularly likes. He also knows it’s not something he can control. There’s so much that’s not for them to decide, so much they can only watch unfold, that it would be stupid to hang on to the idea that they have any power over this. Or maybe they have, more than before anyway, but it still feels like there’s little they can actually do. They can barely look at each other on stage, for god’s sake. (Louis can’t even wear a shirt with a rainbow on it and no, Harry is not going to think about this – at all.)

Sometimes, Harry thinks that maybe it would be less cruel if the world was indeed collapsing. It’s a terrible thought, and he’s not really proud of it, but he likes to believe that, at least, they would be free to love each other in plain sight and that it would be worth it. He’s never denied being selfish. He’s not sure he was in the beginning. Selfish, that is. But, when people try to take what you love the most away from you again and again, you learn to cling on to it.

They’re in Dubai and the city is beautiful, a strange mix between Disneyland and a modern metropolis, something out of a futuristic movie. The Harry who unknowingly initiated their game in Manchester would be baffled to see them now, in a huge hotel room, on their second stadium world tour, Zayn far far away from them. He would, maybe, be appalled if he knew what’s going to happen, the clubbing, and the pregnancy scandal. He wouldn’t know about the sacrifices you’re ready to make after five years of fighting because you’re just so tired and all you want is for it to stop and you don’t care about what winning entails anymore. You don’t care about fighting dirty. Harry feels sympathy for him, but no real indulgence.

He hopes that his past self would forgive him or, at least, try to understand him. Because Harry still has Louis, softly sleeping next to him, and that’s the only thing he’s ever truly wanted.

He likes to think that sacrifices have a meaning, and that every version of him would know that Louis is worth it.

  
\---

Maybe there’s no such thing as fate. Things are messy, a bundle of _what ifs_ and _maybes_ and _almosts_ and _should haves_. But there’s still this impulse, this incredibly human impulse to try and make sense of them. Sometimes it’s not even the beginning or the middle that really matters, but the belief that all of this will have an ending and that it will be happy. And, for things to have an ending, Harry thinks, they need to have a beginning. So you tell yourself stories and you let people create stories and none of them are true, but none of them are really false either. They are just infinite versions of what could’ve happened, and all of them are as real and plausible as what really happened.

Above all, Harry believes in their happy ending. He’s not like Louis, not exactly. Louis believes in winning, which is, Harry thinks, quite a different thing.

And maybe, many years from now, they’ll tell a story to their grandchildren and Harry will tell them how they managed to get free, and Louis will tell the same story but it will be slightly different, the story of how they won. In the end, though, it will be okay.

It will be a story about how they ended up living happily. And, if there’s no ever after, what they’ll have will surely be the closest thing to it.

This is what they are, and this is what they will be.

A story with no end in sight.

**Author's Note:**

> The tumblr post is [here](http://pininglou.tumblr.com/post/127263538441/thanks-to-marianna-for-the-graph-how-i)


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